Tuesday, September 24, 2013

First week of Fall

The Fall season is here with cool, dry weather.  The golf course received a wonderful, slow soaking rain Saturday night which helped some turf rebound from the dry conditions.  Irrigation will never 100% make up for rainfall.  Our team has been busy readying the course for tournaments and the Fall season.  Right now our main focus is on playing conditions and putting the bermudagrass to bed for the winter.  It won't be long before leaves are falling and the bermudagrass is dormant.  Right now, our fairway, rough, tee, and approach applications are focused on prevention of spring dead spot and winter weeds.  The following pictures detail a few of the events taking place around the club.

Enjoy the perfect weather.  Go Golf!

Jordan Booth
jbooth@willowoakscc.org

You can tell how the trees affect turf conditions during drought situations.  Irrigation is supplemented with hand watering as necessary but this picture illustrates the on-going battle between trees and turf for water, sunlight, and nutrients.  Larger mulch beds may be the solution in some areas.  Dry conditions allow us a great opportunity to diagnose and adjust irrigation deficiencies.  Our team has been busy making adjustments to perfect our irrigation coverage.  The above average rainfall earlier this year gave us some great insight into needed drainage as well.
A new artificial tee surface was installed at the driving range.  Half of the concrete pad was covered with the artificial tee.  The tee will be used during the winter months to take traffic off of the dormant bermudagrass tees.

There are many benefits to this type of surface:  You can place a tee in the ground at varying heights.  The surface gives to imitate 'fat' shots or miss-hits.  It is a continuous surface that allows for more variability in setup and less wear and tear.  Everyone has seen the an old rubber range mat somewhere that is worn out in the dead center.  This surface is a great addition and will promote better turf conditions in the spring.
Our team over-seeds the front range tee, side range tee and target greens with perennial ryegrass for a better look in the winter.  Winter traffic will be kept on these tees and the artificial surface to promote a great middle and back driving range tee in the golfing season.

Pansies and Mums were installed around the club for great seasonal color.




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